Dr. Richard Allen Williams, is considered an international expert on hypertension, healthcare disparities, dyslipidemia, diabetes, obesity, heart failure, and sudden cardiac death. He is the Founder and President of the Minority Health Institute, 117th President of the National Medical Association, and Founder of the Association of Black Cardiologists. Dr. Williams was honored by the American Heart Association from which he received the prestigious LifeSaver Award. He has also received the Scroll of Merit and Distinguished Leadership Award from the National Medical Association, their highest honor.

Dr. Williams has authored nine books, including the ground-breaking Textbook of Black-Related Diseases (McGraw-Hill) in 1974, the critically acclaimed Healthcare Disparities at the Crossroads of Healthcare Reform (Springer, 2011), and his most recent book, Blacks in Medicine: Clinical, Demographic, and Socioeconomic Correlations (Springer). He is a cum laude honors graduate of Harvard University, attended the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center where he received the M.D. degree and performed a Cardiology fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Williams served as the Assistant Medical Director at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Hospital where he secured a $3 million dollar grant to establish the King-Drew Sickle Cell Center, and served as Chief of the Heart Station and Head of the Cardiology Department at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center and is Clinical Professor of Medicine at the UCLA School of Medicine (full Professor).